Thursday, November 07, 2013

Sebelius in 2010: You Will "Keep Your Health Plan if You Want,"
That's "The President's Policy"

In a 2010 article ironically titled "Keeping the Plan You Like," Secretary Kathleen Sebelius repeatedly and falsely claimed, as the title of the piece clearly demonstrates, that Americans can keep their health care insurance under the Affordable Care Act. She even goes so far as to reference President Obama's promise that Americans can keep their plans.

Sebelius does not make simply one or two references to Americans keeping their insurance. In fact, she repeatedly states that people can retain their plans. Here are the excerpts of her saying that, in order of appearance in the article:

"Keeping the Plan You Like."

"The Affordable Care Act is designed to let Americans keep their health insurance if they like it."

"This rule reflects the President’s policy that Americans should be able to keep their health plan and doctor if they want."

"The bottom line is that under the Affordable Care Act, if you like your doctor and plan, you can keep them."

Not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times Sebelius repeats the same lie. In between these promises is the tidbit that:

"If health plans significantly raise co-payments or deductibles, or if they significantly reduce benefits – for example, if they stop covering treatment for a disease like HIV/AIDS or cystic fibrosis – they’ll lose their grandfathered status and their customers will get the same full set of consumer protections as new plans."

But if this were true, and Americans enjoyed having insurance that made such changes, wouldn't that automatically make Sebelius's claim that "if you like your doctor and plan, you can keep them" a lie on its face?